Chapter 43

“Essential oil…” Julian paused for a moment and asked, “Didn’t I deliver them this morning? Isn’t that enough?”

“Mr. Brown, that batch of essential oil is not up to standard and cannot be used!” The plant manager said.

“What? The laboratory delivers that batch of essential oil. How could it not be good?” Walking back and forth in the living room, Julian was extremely anxious. “Is there something wrong with the plant? Are you trying to refuse the responsibility?”

“How could it possible, Mr. Brown? Recently, there have been more orders. The workers in the factory work every day. We follow the process, not to mention that the factory is an assembly line. How can we have problems? Why don’t you come and see for yourself?” The plant manager said.

The man was also very aggrieved. After all, if something went wrong, the production would be delayed.

Once the delivery of the order was delayed, the consequences would be serious.

Julian said, “Okay, I’ll go right now.”

After hanging up the phone, Julian immediately put on her clothes and left. Seeing him like this, Vivian pouted and said, “Where are you going in the middle of the night? Who called just now?”

Turning around and looking at her, Julian seemed to think of something. “Go change your clothes and come with me! Hurry up!”

“Me?!” Vivian pointed to her nose and came back to her senses instantly. She was confused. “Where are we going?”

“Go to the factory! Something’s wrong with the essential oil!” Julian shouted.

No matter how reluctant Vivian was, she came to the factory with Julian.

The factory was brightly lit up. As soon as the plant manager saw them, he immediately greeted them.

“Mr. Brown, you are finally here. Come and have a look!”

A whole box of essential oils was put in the corner. Julian bent down and took out a bottle casually. He frowned and smelled it closely. “It smells fine!”

The plant manager didn’t say anything. He turned around and handed over the finished product to Julian. “Try this again.”

“Ahem…” Stimulated by the smell, Julian coughed a few times and covered his nose.

III “Why does this smell so bad? Is there something wrong with your dilution process?”

“It’s all mechanized now. I have checked it carefully and there is no problem. In my experience, there is a problem with essential oils, which explains the big difference in finished products. Mr. Brown, is this batch of essential oil still produced in our laboratory?” The plant manager asked.

Faced with his doubt, Julian turned around and looked at Vivian.

Vivian had just stood by and watched them, but when Julian looked at her like this, she looked innocent. “What? We still follow the previous formula. If there is anything wrong with this, it must be the formula, not me.”

The plant manager was speechless.

Julian was also speechless.

Vivian blurted out her words and was stared at by them like this. She suddenly realized there was something wrong with her words.

In everyone’s eyes, she made the formula and developed it. If something went wrong with the formula, it was her fault.

Vivian coughed lightly and said, “I mean, there’s no problem with the formula! So, it’s not my problem.”

Then she looked at the factory manager and said, “The things in the laboratory have always been made strictly according to the formula. If there is something wrong, it should be wrong very early. Why does it happen now? So, the problem is definitely happening in your plant. Did you check whether the other ingredients were wrong, or did the worker make a mistake? Don’t try to pass the buck if something bad happens.””

The manager said, “Ms. Garcia, don’t be so mean. What do you mean? We found the problem and reported it to Mr. Brown as soon as possible, so we wanted to find out the cause. Now that we’ve checked, it should be the essential oil. If you don’t think so, you are a professional and can help us find out the root cause of the problem. We can also adjust it and put it into production as soon as possible.”

Vivian was furious. “What do you mean? Ask me to help you find out the root of your problem? Do you think I have too much free time? You can’t solve your problem and you want to get me involved. I told you! There is absolutely no problem in the laboratory. You can solve it by yourself!”

She was rude, and the plant manager got angry. He looked at Julian and said, “Mr. Brown, since you’re here, what do you think we should do now? Recently, there have been a lot of orders and the time is already very short. If we don’t solve them as soon as possible, we will definitely not be able to deliver the goods within the contract time.”

|||

Vivian said, “It turns out that you can’t deliver the goods in time and deliberately made excuses to shirk your responsibility. How dare you throw the laboratory under the bus. Do you know…”

“Stop!” Julian suddenly shouted. Vivian was stunned for a moment and pursed her lips in silence.

“What’s the point of arguing about whose responsibility it is?” Julian stuffed a bottle of essential oil into Vivian’s hand with a sullen face, “Ms. Garcia, take this bottle back to the laboratory and study it carefully. Check if there’s something wrong?”

“I…” Vivian tried to say something.

Before she could speak, Julian said to the plant manager, “When something goes wrong, it needs to be fixed, and you were right to report it. But we can’t just say that the problem lies in essential oil. You should check it for yourself, and…”

He thought for a while and said, “See if there is any essential oil left before. If so, send it to the laboratory immediately. We will check it again.”

Now that he had said this, the plant manager couldn’t say anything more and could only nod. “Alright!

However, Mr. Brown, please do it as soon as possible. Otherwise, the day of delivery may be…”

“I know. Thank you for your hard work!” Julian patted the manager on the shoulder and left with Vivian who was still standing there.

Sitting in the car, Vivian looked at the bottle of essential oil in her hand and muttered with resentment, “Why do you want me to check it? There is nothing to check. I think the problem must be inside the factory.”

“Are you so sure that there must be no problem with the laboratory?” Julian asked as he drove.

“Of course, this is not a new product. It’s still an old version. I made it according to the formula. How can there be any problem? Unless…”

Vivian paused for a while and suddenly perked up. “Unless there is something wrong with the formula!”

Julian pressed the brake firmly and turned to look at her.

Because of inertia, Vivian rushed forward and was pulled back by the seat belt. She held the essential oil bottle in her hand tightly, sniffed it close to the tip of her nose, frowned, and thought carefully. “Julian, are we… falling into a trap?”

Julian bit his lips tightly and said nothing.

|||

<

Vivian continued, “That formula was left by Seraphina. Did she do anything to it? I wonder why she hasn’t said a word recently and even stood up to defend herself. It turns out that she knew it before.

Julian, she set us a trap!”

Julian stepped on the accelerator again and said, “Go back to the lab first!”